Frieze 2023: The Pinnacle of Contemporary Art Arrives This October

Ibrahim Mahama, Bintu Abrasipu Sekondi, 2019. C-print on Dibond, 97.5 × 65 cm. Purchased from White Cube, London by the Contemporary Art Society through its Collections Fund at Frieze, October 2022; presented to Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, 2022/23. © Ibrahim Mahama, courtesy of the Contemporary Art Society

As October approaches, the international art scene is buzzing with anticipation for Frieze 2023. Celebrated as one of the world's leading art fairs, Frieze is an emblematic gathering that encapsulates the spirit, innovation, and diversity of contemporary art.

Set in the stunning location of London the Frieze Art Fair will run from Wed, 11 Oct 2023 – Sun, 15 Oct 2023 offering an extraordinary opportunity to immerse oneself in a world of artistic discovery.

The 2023 edition marks the 20th anniversary of Frieze London, Art enthusiasts, collectors, and even casual observers can expect an eclectic mix of works, from avant-garde installations to timeless masterpieces. Notable this year is the focus special initiative Artist-to-Artist, where eight world-renowned artists propose a counterpart for a solo exhibition at the fair. 

Frieze 2023 isn't just a visual feast; it's a full-on sensory experience. Aside from the art, attendees can look forward to engaging dialogues in the Talks Programme, hands-on workshops, and even a sculptural park offering a tranquil escape from the indoor excitement.

Frieze 2023 is more than an art fair; it's a celebration of artistic dialogue and discovery. This October, be prepared to explore, engage, and most importantly, be enthralled.

For the latest updates on Frieze 2023, stay tuned to SMOOR Magazine. We’ll be on the ground, capturing every brushstroke and nuance.

See you there!

Marina Xenofontos, I don’t sleep, I dream, 2021. The Island Club, Limassol, Cyprus. Courtesy of the artist, Hot Wheels Athens and The Island Club

Rita Keegan, Homage to Frida Kahlo, 1987. Oil on canvas, 66 x 66 cm. Acquired from Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo © Tate Photography / Matt Greenwood

Miami Art Week 2015 Highlights

At the center of what now is commonly referred to as Miami Art Week, is Art Basel Miami Beach, held annually at the Miami Beach Convention Center. During the 14th edition, 267 galleries from 32 countries exhibited and sold works from world renowned artists like Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Frank Stella, Yinka Shonibare, Kehinde Wiley, Anish Kapoor and Wangechi Mutu. The fair, spearheaded by Art Basel’s newly appointed Director Americas Noah Horowitz, was attended by 77,000 visitors over five days, including major private collectors as well as directors, curators, trustees and patrons of nearly 200 museum and institution groups. Collectors from over 110 countries attended the show, with first-time collectors coming from Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Romania, Togo and Zimbabwe.

Tobias Rehberger - Prolaktin ECLIA 9.4 - at Art Basel Miami Beach - photo by Heike Dempster

Jean-Michel Basquiat - Hoax -  at Art Basel Miami Beach - photo by Heike Dempster

Wangechi Mutu - Chocolate Nguva - at Art Basel Miami Beach - photo by Heike Dempster

Yinka Shonibare sculpture at Art Basel Miami Beach - photo by Heike Dempster

The most engaging section at Art Basel Miami Beach tends to be the Positions sector, which allows curators, critics, and collectors to discover ambitious new talents from across the globe, by providing a platform for a single artist to present one major project.

Among the 16 exhibitors in Positions, 12 were first-time participants in the sector. Artists included Dan Bayles at François Ghebaly Gallery (Los Angeles), Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz at Marcelle Alix (Paris), Vittorio Brodmann at Galerie Gregor Staiger (Zurich), Henning Fehr and Philipp Rühr at Galerie Max Mayer (Dusseldorf), GCC at Project Native Informant (London), Jiieh G Hur at One and J. Gallery (Seoul), Fritzia Irizar at Arredondo \ Arozarena (Mexico City), Daniel Keller at Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler (Berlin), Andrei Koschmieder at Real Fine Art (New York), Jaromír Novotný at hunt kastner (Prague), Sean Paul at Thomas Duncan Gallery (Los Angeles), Romy Pocztaruk at SIM Galeria (Curitiba), B. Ingrid Olson at Simone Subal Gallery (New York), Villa Design Group at Mathew Gallery (Berlin, New York), Thomas Wachholz at RaebervonStenglin (Zurich) and He Xiangyu at White Space Beijing (Beijing).

Sales highlights in 2015 included a Francis Bacon oil on canvas, “Man in Blue,” from 1954, with an asking price of $15 million by Van de Weghe Fine Art, and Picasso’s “Buste au Chapeau” oil from 1971, with an asking price of $10.5 million, from the same gallery. Mazzoleni, a gallery in Turin and London, reported the sale of three works by Alberto Burri from the 1960s, including a “Plastica” which sold for $2 million.

Surrounding Art Basel Miami Beach is a number of satellite fairs in Miami Beach as well as Miami’s Midtown. Most prominently, the modern and contemporary art fair Art Miami, which has been a prime Miami art fair since its inception 26 years ago. As every year at Art Miami, 120 galleries presented works of the highest quality to international collectors. As the No. 1 ranked international art fair for attendance in the U.S. and second most attended globally, Art Miami attracted more than 85,000 new and established collectors, curators, museum professionals, press, art world luminaries and art enthusiasts to its 200,000-square-foot pavilions.

Art Miami sister fair CONTEXT was an absolute must-see this year. Featuring 95 international galleries and projects from 20 countries and 53 cities, CONTEXT presented promising cutting-edge, mid-career and established artists. Especially impressive and one of the most noteworthy stand-outs of Miami Art Week 2015, was the art presented by the Galleries Association of Korea, which included, amongst others, Nine Gallery and artists Lee Lee Nam and Son Bong Chae.

Another highlight of Art Week was the 2015 edition of UNTITLED., held in the fair’s fuchsia tent right on the sand of Miami Beach at Ocean Drive and flooded with natural light, boasting views of the ocean. UNTITLED. creates a distinct fair experience as it is expertly curated to offer a presentation unlike any other fair.

Founded by Jeff Lawson in New York in partnership with Alan G. Randolph in Miami, UNTITLED. welcomed back its curatorial team, led by Artistic Director Omar López-Chahoud, with curators Christophe Boutin and Melanie Scarciglia, co-founders of the distinguished publishing houses “onestar press” and “Three Star Books” in Paris.

Galleries that stood out were Taymour Grahne Gallery from New York, presenting works by Hassan Hajjaj, two galleries from Stuttgart, Germany: Thomas Fuchs and Michael Sturm, Luis de Jesus from Los Angeles, presenting paintings by Edith Beaucage, and Galerie Ron Mandos presenting the latest works by three international acclaimed artists: Isaac Julien, Krisstof Kintera and Inti Hernandez.

Other fairs on the beach were SCOPE Miami Beach, with a focus on emerging and mid-career contemporary and Miami Beach PULSE, where the Vietnamese multi-disciplinary artists, writer and curator Trong Gia Nguyen won the PULSE Prize.

Henry Taylor - Untitled (jade in white) at NADA - photo by Heike Dempster

Jacolby Satterwhite at Moran Banderoff at NADA - photo by Heike Dempster

NADA, a fair that to many collectors and art enthusiasts is a must-see, was held at the Fontainebleau Hotel this year. NADA is presented by the New Art Dealers Alliance, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to the cultivation, support, and advancement of new voices in contemporary at. For the 2015 edition, 87 galleries, art spaces and organizations, including Miami’s own Guccivuitton and Locust Projects as well as LA-based gallery Moran Bondaroff, which presented works by artists like Jacolby Satterwhite, Michael Genovese, Lucien Smith and Eric Mack, amongst others.

Besides the fairs, Miami Art Week offers a calendar packed with special exhibition like “Unrealism,” a collaboration between Jeffrey Deitch and Larry Gagosian at the Moore Building, gallery exhibitions, special installations, performances, and projects, public art, breakfasts, brunches, lunches, dinners and parties, parties and more parties. Whether Solange Knowles spinning at Fendi, the Urban Bush Babes celebrating with Bombay Sapphire, or Dev Hynes and Ryan McNamara presenting their latest project “Dimensions” at the Perez Art Museum Miami, there was no shortage of fun and stories to be told.

Brazilian artist Edouardo Kobra in front of his mural in progress in Wynwood - photo by Robert Dempster

Installation view at the No Commission art fair - photo by Heike Dempster

Miami artist Jose Mertz painting in Wynwood

So Youn Lee art at the No Commission art fair

Also in town was rapper and producer Swizz Beatz, an avid art collector himself, who brought the No Commission Art Fair to Wynwood. The Dean Collection in collaboration with BACARDI presented an art fair . featuring artists like HoxxoH, Michael Vasquez, KAWS, Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas, Sue Tsai, Timothy Buwalda, SWOON, Shepard Fairey, Tomokazu Matsuyama, and a concert series featuring Alicia Keys, Pusha T, DMX and Whiz Khalifa.

What was different about Swizz Beatz approach? It was quite significant actually. There was no fee to exhibit at his fair and no commission was taken from the artists‘ sales. Additionally, the fair supported The Heliotrop Foundation, started by artist Swoon as a way to support and extend the values and vision of her long-term community-based projects , such as the core projects in Haiti as well as Pennsylvania and Louisiana in the US.

Manny Prieres in front of his work at the exhibition Full Moon at Spinello Projects - photo by Robert Dempster

Works by Aramis Gutierrez and Agustina Woodgate at the exhibition Full Moon at Spinello Projects - photo by Heike Dempster

Works by Aramis Gutierrez and Agustina Woodgate at the exhibition Full Moon at Spinello Projects - photo by Heike Dempster

The most interesting project of the week was presented by Anthony Spinello of Spinello Projects - the Littlest Sister Art Fair. The gallery, which showed for the first time in the new space in Little Haiti, also simultaneously celebrated its 10th anniversary with the exhibition “Full Moon,” featuring artists Agustina Woodgate, Antonia Wright, Aramis Gutierrez, Farley Aguilar, Kris Knight, Manny Prieres, Naama Tsabar, Santiago Rubino, Sinisa Kukec, Typoe and special live performance by Psychic Youth Inc. and Franky Cruz.

Curated by Sofia Bastidas, the Littlest Sister Art Fair was a “faux” invitational art fair, commenting on the art fair as an entity that activated Miami’s contemporary arts scene. The fair, set up as a traditional fair space with 10 small white-walled booth featured works by Miami based female artists who work in painting, sculpture, design, installation, and new media. A project sector focused on video, sound, performance, and happenings.

NUN at the Littlest Sister Art Fair - photo by Robert Dempster

Running concurrently, Platform, a symposium bringing together Miami’s most influential women in the arts, invited panelists to engage in conversations and debate regarding current macro and local issues, from challenges in the field, the future of art fairs, real estate development and the arts, to gender and race inequality in the market. Programmed throughout Miami Art Week, Platform will create informal opportunities of exchange for real critical discourse.

5 London Art Fairs you can’t say no to

Have you ever heard of the phenomenon ‘the fear of missing out’? Well then you better get rid of all plans in your agenda and all excuses in the making, as these 5 London Art Fairs are too good to pass on. 

The Other Art Fair

When.. October 15-18th

Where..  Old Truman Brewery

Besides bringing 130 emerging talents to the stage and enlightening you with the next big thing in terms of art, the ‘other’ in ‘The Other Art Fair’ stands for more than you can possibly want from a creative event like this. Besides innovative creative workshops for the curious and intrepid amongst us, talks by art experts and past exhibitors, shows, films and installations, there will also be a surprise event that most likely will knock you off your feet.

The London Illustration Fair

When? December 4th-6th

Where? Bargehouse at Oxo Tower Wharf

If you are obsessed with graphic design, print and everything illustration based, The London Illustration Fair, which has earned the title of the only London based event dedicated to illustration, will feel like utopia to you. Bringing buyers and artists together in one creative environment, the fair has both an eclectic audience as well as a massive assortment of cutting-edge artworks.

 Frieze London

When.. October 14-17th

Where.. The south end of Regent’s Park

With 160 galleries from over 25 countries in the world, it is safe to say Frieze London is the most impressive contemporary art fair in London. Celebrating its 13th anniversary, the fair goes big, presenting contributions by artists such as Asad Raza, Jeremy Herbert, Lutz Bacher and winner of the Frieze Artist Award 2015 Rachel Rose. Organising inspiring talks, interactive installations, underground chambers and the return of the beautiful Sculpture Park, Frieze London is a feast for the senses.

London Photography Fair

When.. November 8th

Where.. Bloomsbury Holliday Inn

This boutique-style photography fair will astonish you with vintage masterpieces, unusual findings, and an abundance of specialist knowledge. Whether you are there to absorb the nostalgic atmosphere or to browse for photos that complete your collection, London Photography Fair will leave a mark on your memory.

Image via www.widewalls.ch

Moniker Art Fair

When.. October 15-18th

Where.. Old Truman Brewery

Celebrating urban culture within contemporary art, Moniker Art Fair brings something unique to the scene and foundations of a matchless experience.  Voicing a new generation of street artists and introducing Bitcoin to art fans, it challenges the status quo.